


Voluntary Procedure

by Ranni



Category: Avengers, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Civil War what is it good for, Clint Barton & Natasha Romanov Friendship, Clint Barton Needs a Hug, Endgames Who What When Where How Now, Gen, Hurt Clint Barton, Hurt Natasha Romanov, Hurt/Comfort, Medical Procedures, Natasha Romanov Needs a Hug, Protective Avengers, SHIELD, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-05
Updated: 2019-07-12
Packaged: 2019-10-22 21:59:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17670899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ranni/pseuds/Ranni
Summary: Natasha examines the veins and fine bones of her wrists and hopes she and Clint will be tied down securely, that her skin won’t be left ragged and bleeding. Hopes that she doesn’t manage to fight her way free and go careening through the halls, that they won’t have to tranquilize and drag her back.—or—The Avengers are going to be pretty unhappy when they find out what Natasha and Clint have agreed to.





	1. Natasha/Voluntary Procedure

“It doesn’t hurt,” Clint says.

They’d let him fly the quinjet back, and Natasha had been surprised at that, surprised that Fury had allowed it, surprised that Ross hadn’t kept them at gunpoint until they were in Medical and safely blasted into amnesia.  But Clint flew them home just as he had flown them out, and if he was a little more somber than usual and Natasha a little more tense, well, no one saw fit to mention it.

Now Clint’s smile projects _calm calm calm_ but his eyes scream another message as he picks at the tape securing the IV lock to his hand. He pulls up a corner and quickly presses it back down again, smoothing it over his knuckle with a mock-guilty look. “The way I’ve heard it, it doesn’t hurt.”

That’s not what Natasha’s heard, not at all. _She’s_ heard that people are dragged in shaking and scream throughout, but the drugs make them forget that fear. All that’s left is a neat hole in the memory, the procedure cleanly excising whatever troublesome bit of trivia that someone doesn’t want remembered. There will be no blood, no wound, no lasting scar.

“And we’ll also get a few days off afterward,” he continues, and it’s a little pathetic the way he keeps reaching for a silver lining, the way he tries to nudge her to see one, too.

This procedure is used sparingly, so sparingly—there’s risk of long term damage and such assets as Black Widow and Hawkeye are not easily risked—and it’s ironic that while Natasha has a head full of bad memories she’d like to lose _t_ _his_ is the one that was chosen.  It was a bad mission, certainly, but she’s done and experienced worse, and gotten over it. They both have.

Of course, this doesn’t have anything to do with sparing them an unpleasant memory; it’s all to protect Ross and the World Security Council.

Torture will be pointless, hypnosis won’t work. There simply will not be any of the relevant information left to access.

Natasha smiles back at him. It feels like a real smile and maybe it looks like one, too. “We could use a little downtime.”

This area of Medical is soundproofed. There’s some comfort in knowing that she won’t have to hear his screams, and he'll be spared hers.

“No kidding. It’s been a hell of a week.”

Natasha examines the veins and fine bones of her wrists and hopes that she and Clint will be tied down securely, that her skin won’t be left ragged and bleeding. Hopes that she doesn’t manage to fight her way free and go careening through the halls, that they won’t have to tranquilize and drag her back.

That’s _another_ story she’s heard.

 "You ever wonder if while we’re out they might just—“ Clint drags his finger across his neck in a slashing motion, and his teeth are bared into something like his usual teasing grin, but his eyes move immediately back to the IV lock.

 “You’re hilarious,” she growls and he smirks, both of them happy enough to pretend that it’s a joke.

The nurse comes in and says, “Agent Barton?” in the faux-cheerful voice that all of the nurses use, and Natasha hates her a little. This whole process is just another part of this nurse’s day—perhaps this morning an agent with strep throat came begging for antibiotics, later this afternoon someone might come in for a mammogram. Clint and Natasha are just two patients among many; the ones that’ll be strapped to tables, their brains systematically burned with drugs.

But at the sound of his name Clint goes still, his tongue paused where it had been running along his back teeth, and Natasha is suddenly sure that he’s changed his mind. That he’s decided that this isn’t worth it, no matter how much pressure is put on them or what threats come.

He’ll back out and Natasha will back _him_. They’ll leave together, and there won’t be a fight, there won’t be a chase, because this is SHIELD Medical and everyone is busily pretending that this whole thing is voluntary. No, the conflict won’t take place here, but later—in offices, in meetings, in persuasive and raised voices. And then, later and more directly, with General Ross coming after them with other SHIELD agents and maybe even soldiers. Tony will shelter them, Natasha is sure, and all the Avengers will help her and Clint if it comes to a fight.

But _today_ there won’t be a fight. It will just be the two of them, walking out the door, not allowing this thing to happen.

Natasha is so certain that she almost stands when Clint does, but his expression is wrong; not the anger she expects, but poorly masked resignation. Clint drops the magazine he’d been fiddling with onto an end table with a thud of finality and smiles at the nurse, his fingers twitching for weapons that aren’t there.

“See you on the other side.” He says it with the false, exuberant good cheer that he uses on marks and captors and bureaucrats and does not look at Natasha.

 _Don’t do it,_ she wants to scream. _Don’t do it, don’t go, don’t let them take you._

“See you, Hawkeye.”

But the only thing she sees is his back as he follows the nurse down the hall and away.

Natasha picks up the discarded magazine, the cover still warm from his fingers.

Opens it.

Closes it.

Opens it again and plucks out a notecard-sized perfume ad, holds it to her nose and inhales deeply. The scent has long since faded and Natasha lets the card flutter back down to the table.

Fury promised he’d be here, that he’d watch over things, and maybe he’s back there now, wherever they took Clint. Or maybe he’s not around at all. Maybe he’s lied again.

An hour ago Fury had frowned at her neat, tiny signature at the bottom of the consent form that there was no point in reading—they won't remember this, won't even know enough to complain about it later. Clint took the pen from Natasaha and signed a slashed ‘C’ that degenerated into a halfhearted squiggle. Fury looked unhappy, and maybe he was, but still he moved the whole process inexorably forward. 

“There’s no need for the team to know about this,” Fury said, and Natasha had stared at the floor to avoid rolling her eyes at the empty warning. _She_ certainly wouldn’t be able to tell them.

Now the hallway is quiet and the door Clint walked through is shut. It’s probably not even locked. She could walk right in if she wanted, walk right in and grab his hand, pull him out again.

Or maybe it’s too late, maybe they’ve already started the procedure while she was flipping through a magazine. Maybe her best friend was strapped down and already screaming as Natasha sniffed for imaginary perfume.

The door opens and the nurse appears again, just as cheerful as before. “Agent Romanov? Are _you_ ready?”

Natasha sees herself knocking the woman to the ground, bolting for the stairwell. Going to the Tower and telling the team everything. It’d be too late to help Clint by then, but he would understand, would never blame her for saving herself and leaving him temporarily behind.

Run. She could run to the team or just _away_. She could run forever.

“Yes,” Natasha says instead. “I’m ready.”


	2. Bruce/Normal for an Avenger

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let's finish this fic on up, shall we? This chapter sets up pins for the next to knock down.

*

Tony says something that Bruce doesn't hear. He doesn't ask what it was, figuring Tony will repeat it if it's important.

Then something pops, something shatters, and beyond an involuntary flinch at the sound, Bruce doesn’t react at all, just keeps measuring and pouring, waiting for the inevitable _heh heh heh_ of Tony’s wry laughter.

Once upon a time having a lab mate who regularly caused fires and small explosions would be a thing of great concern, but Bruce is used to it now, expects it even. Humans can adapt to anything, if given enough exposure, can normalize anything. Bruce is no longer fascinated by Thor being an actual alien or in awe of Steve’s accelerated healing factor. 

These are the things that are an Avenger’s normal.

“They’re at SHIELD, I said.” Tony appears suddenly at Bruce's elbow holding a Starkpad, his voice amused and irritated, obviously not the first time he's said the words, trying to pierce Bruce’s focus. "Been back about four hours, it looks like."

“What? Oh. Good.”

Of course they’re back. After years together Bruce no longer wrings his hands when Clint and Natasha suit up and disappear on SHIELD business. He no longer worries that they won’t come back, because they _will_ , they always do.

“They’re in Medical now.” 

Bruce _hmmm_ s in response. A stop by Medical is a normal part of the debrief process.

Tony keeps hovering and reading, close but not close enough to be obnoxious, fiddling with the Starkpad. That’s another thing that has normalized—how deeply Tony has his hooks sunk into SHIELD’s systems. _Snooping_ , Steve calls it, though he’s happy enough to exploit that bad habit whenever the team is in trouble, but disapproving of it the rest of the time. But Bruce understands; when granted a group of friends it’s natural to weave a net of safety around them, to want to watch and keep track.

Tony snickers and when Bruce raises a questioning eyebrow, says, “The Black Widow is slightly dehyrated.”

“Shocking!” Bruce deadpans, grinning.

 Natasha comes away from every medical debrief labeled _slightly dehydrated_. Again, so normal and so standard as to barely warrant comment, and Bruce is already anticipating the inevitable report of Hawkeye’s sprained ankle. It’s always his left one and it keeps happening again and again and again—Clint’s supposed to get surgery on that ankle but keeps putting it off for one reason or another, and the whole thing has gone on so long that even Steve's stopped scolding about it. Bruce’s smile widens, still so sure that the announcement is coming that its takes him a few beats to catch up that Tony hasn’t moved on to Clint’s chart at all, that he’s still skimming Natasha’s.

“Her blood pressure is—” Tony shakes his head a little and looks up quizzically at Bruce. “I thought her blood pressure was always low. That’s Nat, right? She's the one with the super low blood pressure?”

Indeed she is. Many times Bruce has taken her blood pressure and gaped at the result, astounded that the woman is conscious at all, much less walking and talking and kicking everyone’s ass. But Natasha always laughs at his reaction and says that she feels fine, because that’s her normal. But this number isn’t, this blood pressure reading number would be high for anyone, which means that it's _sky_ high for Natasha Romanov. Bruce’s grin vanishes as he plucks the Starkpad from Tony’s hands, swiping through data.

Too _much_ data, far too much for a standard medical debrief—EEG, MRI, every sort of bloodwork imaginable. Bruce sweeps Natasha’s data away to look at Clint’s, and it’s more of the same. Too much testing, a doctor looking to find something wrong, perhaps, or to rule something out. And aside from the mild dehydration and that high blood pressure, all the results all appear perfectly normal, but alarm bells are ringing and there’s a cold finger of dread down Bruce’s back, the Hulk stirring slightly.

 

*

The team gets there too late.

And that’s another that is normal for the Avengers—they’re always reacting to a disaster, arriving at a crisis already in process, after buildings have already been torn down, after people have been terrorized. They always thwart a global crisis but never prevent a local one. Today the available Avengers consist of two superhumans and two team members that fly and they _still_ get there late, too late.

When they arrive Director Fury is glowering but suspiciously silent, and that’s how Bruce knows it’s going to be bad. Fury never looks sorry or guilty about anything.

“You can’t be here.” The charge nurse goes for an authoritative tone, hands on her hips, toe to toe with Captain America and completely unphased by Thor’s vaguely menacing proximity. “There are sick people that need their rest.”

 “Show us where they are, and we won’t be here anymore," Steve says reasonably enough, but Bruce can't make himself wait, can't stand there and listen to everyone argue when he knows exactly where his friends will be. He walks past Steve and the nurse, past Fury and Thor and Tony, almost dreamlike, and through that door because his friends are there and almost certainly suffering on the other side.

SHIELD Medical is an odd marriage of intensive care and walk-in clinic, with only one door separating the agents recovering from gunshot wounds from the ones getting flu shots. And then there's another door, and beyond it a place that Bruce knows all too well, a place that is both a hospital and a laboratory. A few steps and two sets of doors and the lively sounds of the clinic disappear abruptly, replaced by silence and the artificial chill that rings more _facility_ than hospital. This is the place where SHIELD puts all the things it’s ashamed of.

Bruce Banner has been on both sides of a door like that—another horrible thing that’s somehow become normal.

 

*

They find Natasha first, bound to a hospital bed by her forearms and ankles, another strap velcroed around her middle. And that's bad enough but the tear tracks are worse, because they're not right. Natasha doesn't cry, there should never be tears on her face and SHIELD should never be the cause. 

Thor opens the restraints and while calling to Bruce, who pays no attention as he turns mechanically on his heel and walks facefirst into Tony, who’s also paused, aghast, in the doorway. Bruce pushes him aside none too gently and returns to the hallway where Steve is still shouting, his “—force people to be complicit in their own—” almost drowning out Fury’s “— _no_ idea what I’ve had to do to keep them—”. 

Clint is in the next room and isn’t tied to the bed by anything but IV lines, a blood pressure cuff, an oxygen meter. He’s all writhing motion in counterpoint to Natasha’s stillness, making a low keening noise as he presses his palms against his forehead, doubled over so far in the bed that his face rests against his drawn-up knees. There’s a nurse in this room too, and she must recognize Bruce, because she immediately bursts into terrified tears and runs from the room.

Good. She _should_ be afraid; a monster is coming. The Hulk wants to tear Medical apart and Bruce wants to let him, but not just yet. He crosses the room in stiff, halting steps, the body not wholly his anymore, reaching for to Clint, wanting to examine him for injury, wanting to see his face, his eyes. Clint groans, his fingers fisted into his short hair, his elbow knocking away Bruce’s questing hand, maybe on accident, maybe on purpose.

 “I found Barton!” Tony calls over his shoulder from the doorway, and in a moment he’s right up close and practically sitting in the hospital bed with Clint, his head swinging back and forth almost comically between his two teammates.

“Don’t.” It’s both a plea and a warning as Tony pats awkwardly at Clint's hunched back with one hand and at Bruce’s chest with the other—Tony's put his hand where Bruce’s shoulder _should_ be, but suddenly that’s chest height now as everything expands slightly, bones straining, muscles screaming. “Don't do it; we need you. Calm down, huh? Bruce. _Bruce_.”

It’s almost a rebuke, an irritated admonishment. _We need to be taking care of Nat and Clint instead of dealing with your Hulkout. Tut tut, so selfish._

“My head,” Clint moans through gritted teeth, reaching back toward Tony and then lashing out the moment Tony hovers close enough. The blow lands clumsily and weakly, glancing off Tony’s collarbone and probably hurting not at all. 

 “We’re going to get you out of here,” Tony promises. Clint swings again and Tony catches his hand as the dangling IV line gets caught against the bedrail. “Bruce? Can we just…start unplugging things? Bruce? Bruce. Come on, _help;_ I don’t know what the fuck any of this stuff is!”

Clint isn't right, he isn't acting like himself at all; his normal in Medical is to alternate between sulking and joking before declaring himself suddenly cured and attempting to leave. His thrashing and moaning is as foreign and horrible as the tears on Natasha's face. Bruce rests one hand against Clint’s back, presses the other against his chest, easing the archer up into a sitting position, and then gripping both sides of his face. Clint’s hands beat instinctively against Bruce’s but weakly, something easily ignored. He wants to make sure that there's no head injury, wants to confirm that Clint's pupils are the same size, but the man just won't hold still, squirming and writhing as Bruce firms his grip, his friend's head feeling too fragile between his hands. 

Thor appears briefly in the doorway then, Natasha in his arms, swathed in blankets. He takes in the scene and immediately leaves again, shouting for Steve.

“Shh, you’re okay, it’s alright.” Bruce tries to make it sound soothing, but his voice is too deep and gritted out from between clenched teeth.  “Let me look at you."

“Bruce, forget it, Jesus, just pull all that shit out of him and let’s _go_ _!"_

 “I can’t see,” Clint wails suddenly, his voice ragged. He digs at his eyes with clumsy, clawed fingers, leaving thin red lines along his cheeks. “I can’t see anything!”

Bruce grabs Clint’s hands and holding them out to the sides. “Stop it, look at me. _Clint_. Look at me!”

“I can’t, I can’t open my eyes!” 

Clint’s frantic, but his eyes _are_ open, and Bruce can see them dart toward and focus very obviously on Tony before moving back to Bruce's face, but the Hulk doesn’t see working eyes, only the way blood drips from the end of one of those scratch marks like a bloody tears. _He's just panicked_ , Bruce tries to soothe, but the Hulk doesn’t hear him, only hears the way Clint gasps and Cap yelling in the hallway, only hears Tony plead _Just get him up, let's go_. Everything is going to fall apart any moment because that's what always happens, that's the Avengers' normal, that Bruce can't hold his shit together and keep the Hulk under wraps when things go to hell.

And sure enough, Bruce sees Clint’s eyes narrow just a beat too late, doesn't have time to react and duck away before Clint suddenly slams his head forward with surprising strength, his forehead colliding impacting Bruce's with a loud crunch and a burst of light. Bruce reels back and is replaced by the Hulk in the same moment, grabbing up Clint’s hands back up in his too-large ones.

 “Oh shit,” Tony exclaims almost conversationally from behind. “Oh shit shit _shit_.”

The Hulk is the one that finally pulls Clint Barton off the bed, two IVs ripping free in a spattering of blood droplets as some monitor starts shrieking in protest. He pulls Clint close, still trying to look into his eyes the way Bruce had wanted, though the reasons for that are vague and unclear and beyond the Hulk's understanding.

Clint glares right back and raises his chin as he snarls, “Fuck. You.” directly into the Hulk’s face.

And Tony gasps in horror, but somewhere inside Bruce Banner sighs in relief, because that's just right, that's their normal, too—the defiance and ragged sort of dignity that is common to all the Avengers in the face of pain and terror. The Hulk just blinks in surprise and then clutches Clint carefully against his chest as he sets about tearing SHIELD Medical apart.


	3. Clint/Hell is SHIELD Medical

*

Fury makes it seem like a choice, but it isn’t. Not really.

 

*

Clint and Natasha are crammed in the back of a truck with the two soldiers they’d been paired with for this op, the four of them uncomfortably close, feet touching and knees knocking any time anyone moves. Clint wants to be unhappy about it, wants to bitch about the temperature of too many bodies in too small a space, about how Breen reeks of body odor, or the way Hadley chews piece after piece of gum like a cow working cud.

Clint wants to be irritated because it would feel good to reach for something familiar, it would be better than this anticipation, this dread, because he and Natasha are going to be wiped today. And Hadley and Breen are both going to die today, though neither of them knows it.

Breen is spending the last few hours of his life playing a video game on his phone, and that seems insane, that seems like injustice, and Clint wants to urge him to put that phone down and spend his last moments doing literally anything else. Contemplating the beauty of the sun or the fragility of the human condition. Composing an emotional goodbye letter, or even reminiscing about his childhood dog. Something. _Anything_.

Instead Clint says nothing, because it won’t do any good; these two soldiers are going to die and to warn them, to frighten them, would be needlessly cruel when there’s nothing to be done about it.

Natasha says nothing either, just smiles and accepts the stick of gum that Hadley offers. Clint takes one too, even though he hates cinnamon flavoring.

Hadley sticks the wrapper in his pocket. “It’s getting to be a bad habit,” he says gesturing to his mouth, “but I’m trying to give up smoking, which is a _worse_ habit.”

Clint and Natasha make polite noises of agreement, though Hadley may as well have smoked like a fiend and enjoyed every goddamned puff, because he’s never going to die of cancer.

 “There’s a pill,” Clint says out of nowhere, surprising even himself, “that helps you stop smoking. A guy I know took it, said it works.”

“I’ll have to look into that,” Hadley says.

“Or you could try the patch.” He shouldn’t be doing this, shouldn’t engage either soldier in any way. It’s foolish to connect, to humanize them even further, to weaving thoughts of a future for a man who has none.

Natasha yawns and stretches as if bored, all just a cover to plant a sharp elbow in her partner’s side, finding a tender spot unerringly and implausibly through a tangle of arms, clothing, and equipment. _Quit it_.

“I’ve thought about the patch, too,” Hadley says. “I don’t care _how_ I quit smoking, as long as it happens before the baby comes.”

 

*

Clint gives not one shit about the mission with General Ross—he would’ve forgotten that on his own, put it aside the same way he does all unpleasantness with SHIELD—but he wants to remember _this_. Fury and Natasha look away but Clint makes himself watch, because Breen and Hadley deserve that. They aren’t bad men and the four of them had been a team, of sorts. The least he can do is bear proper witness to their deaths, and try to remember. The whole thing might not be in vain if he can tell their families about it later.

When he finally understands what is happening, Breen panics, and his flailing arm diverts the gunshot just enough to ensure Hadley a painful death instead of a quick one. Breen makes a terrified dash for freedom as Hadley writhes on the ground, half his face gone, screaming “I can’t see! I can’t open my eyes! I can’t see!”

Clint makes an automatic move toward him—to comfort, to staunch the bloodflow, to push the brains back in, to make it all stop even though it has already happened. He has no clear idea of what he intends to do but doesn’t get farther than a single step before Natasha winds a finger through his belt loop. Just enough to pull him back, not physically, but out of reactive behavior and back to the reality.

There’s no more than that one aborted movement forward. There’s nothing to be done about it, except remember.

 

*

Clint Barton will forever be famous amongst the nurses for two things—receiving the one and only tonsillectomy ever performed in SHIELD Medical and dating Dr. Day. No matter if he’s there to get his annual flu shot or to have a sucking chest wound packed, someone, at some point, will bring up his colorful romantic history.

No one mentions Dr. Day today. It’s quiet and efficient in the operating room, no distracting chit chat, everything as sterile as an alcohol wipe. Maybe they’re worried Clint will flip out and try to fight, or maybe they don’t like what they’re about to do.

Or maybe it’s because Nick Fury has just walked in.

“I’m sorry,” Fury tells him, and Clint immediately answers, “It’s okay.”  

Because that’s how it goes—someone sneezes and is offered a _Bless you_. If the question is _How are you?_ then answer is always _fine_ , and when someone says _I’m sorry_ the other person is supposed to say _It’s okay_ , even if it isn’t.

Fury does look sorry. Maybe he actually is.

Clint gets onto the table willingly enough, deliberately not looking at the straps dangling off the sides, and trying instead to think of Hadley, hoping that if he tries hard enough he can hold onto him. It’d be good to have a nice thing to say to the young widow—either something safe and innocuous like _He was a good guy_ or something professional like _He was a good soldier_. Even something stupid like _He gave me a piece of gum once_ would be better than nothing.

“It’ll be alright,” Fury promises, and grips his wrist lightly. It’s so close to handholding that Clint has a moment of pure delight, thinking can’t wait to tell Natasha about this, immediately chased by the realization that he won’t be able to, because won’t remember it. “It doesn’t hurt.”

The nurse injects something into the IV line and whatever it is burns as it travels up Clint’s hand as he  thinks _Hadley Hadley Hadley._

 

*

Then there’s nothing.

Hadley’s gone, Breen is gone, the mission, the prep, everything up till the moment where Steve stopped Clint and Natasha in the elevator at the Tower and said _Well, good luck. Do you when you’ll be—_

There’s nothing else, just flashes of what may be memories or half remembered dreams.

Clint awakens briefly to a freezing room and a hissing noise right behind his ear, chewing on what feels like the bowl of a spoon. Metal against his teeth as he bites and bites uselessly.

“Now, stop that _,”_ someone scolds, but he can’t.

 

*

Then he wakes up properly in different room and it doesn’t feel like he was asleep so much as _gone_ , a lightbulb turned off and then back on. He recognizes SHIELD Medical but has no idea how he got from the Tower elevator to here—maybe they’d been attacked, or maybe Bruce had Hulked out and torn the building down around them. Maybe one of the labs blew up, the way Pepper always insists that they will. Clint could be here for a lot of reasons; the life of an Avenger is one of chaos.

It feels almost like he’s been shot again—and in the _head_ this time. It feels like everything above his eyes must be a raw, open wound and Clint reaches up to feel before his hand is stopped short by the IV line. A blood pressure cuff grips his upper arm and there are sensor pads that pull at the skin on his chest. There’s something wound around his lower legs, too, things that inflate and deflate constantly in an obnoxious whistle of air.  

It sounds like a sigh, and in between mechanical exhalations Clint has a vague recollection of Fury saying _I’m sorry,_ followed by his own voice answering _It’s okay._

A nurse is seated in the chair next to him—the chair where Coulson always sat, then Natasha, then an Avenger; the chair where a _friend_ should be—fiddling around with a tablet. She smiles and begins asking questions faster than Clint can possibly answer; he’s still puzzling out the words to one when another comes

 _Do you remember_ _what—_

_Can you tell me about—_

_Do you know why_ —

None of her questions matter because he doesn’t remember anything and doesn’t care to—the answer to every single question she has is _no_. But the nurse just keeps going, unbothered that Clint can’t form his mouth and lips and tongue into distinguishable words. Blissfully unaware that her barrage of questions is increasing the pressure in his forehead exponentially, not caring that Clint Barton’s skull is about to split apart right in front of her.

 _I’m sorry_. It might have been Fury that said it. Or maybe Steve. Either way Clint hears someone’s voice murmur _I’m sorry_ , and immediately thinks _It’s okay_.

 “I don’t feel so good.”

Maybe the words don’t come out right, _probably_ they don’t, because the nurse pauses for a moment and studies him, eyebrows raised. Beneath the flimsy blanket the cuffs on his legs inflate and deflate again with another defeated sigh and Clint grits his teeth at the sound, the pain in his head ratcheting impossibly higher.

 _I’m sorry_ , he hears, and _It doesn’t hurt._

He might be dying— _actually_ dying this time, not like all those others times—and has the vague idea to try and hold his head together before it breaks. To push the brains back in, to staunch the bloodflow. The IV line falls down between the mattress and the guardrail and gets caught on something, tethering his hand on an even shorter leash, but Clint doesn’t care, lets the catheter in his hand pull painfully as he forces both hands to his head, driving his fingers into his skull.

“Don’t do that,” the nurse scolds sharply, and she’s reaching for Clint’s wrists when she stops and turns toward the door, listening to what sounds like yelling out in the hallway.

 _I’m sorry_ , someone says, but they’re not here anymore. Clint groans behind his teeth and thinks _It’s okay,_ even though it isn’t.

 “I’m gonna throw up,” Clint tries this time, only realizing that the threat is actually true as he’s saying it aloud, his stomach giving a painful, cramping lurch. His hands are too insubstantial to put as much pressure on his head as he wants, so he folds his upper body down to them, pushing in two directions. The skin will surely give way soon, then the skull beneath.  His head is either going to collapse or explode, and he doesn’t much care which it is, as long as the pain ends. “Gonna puke. Really. I really am gonna. My head—”

The nurse frowns at him, hesitating in front of the door. “I better go see what’s going on out there.”

He’s about to beg her to hand him a pan or a cup or something even _remotely_ useful before the door bursts open dramatically. People are yelling and someone is crying and Clint doesn’t care about any of it—he’s too busy trying holding his brains in. He’s led an adventurous life, a dangerous life, a largely terrible life, and yet this seems to be how the whole thing is going to end for Clint Barton—tangled up in IV tubing and covered in his own vomit, wearing a hospital gown and the stupid fucking inflating leg thingies.

Tony Stark’s nose and eyes are suddenly only inches away. Clint groans and pushes at him; doesn’t want Tony so close, wants him _away_ , but his hands and arms feel boneless and weak while Tony feels oddly immovable.

There was something he wanted to tell them, something important that he was supposed to do or remember—maybe the thing that someone was sorry about—but it’s elusive and dreamlike and _gone_ ; Clint’s brain is on fire and he might be screaming as Bruce’s face replaces Tony’s. Everything degenerates further into a flurry of shouts and hands and beeping monitors, and it isn’t much of a surprise that SHIELD Medical seems to have turned out to actually be Hell.

Bruce reaches out but the Hulk is the one that lifts Clint from the bed, freeing him of all the things that bound him to it.

 _I’m sorry,_ the voice says again, and this time Clint grits out a “Fuck you”, not caring that it’s to the wrong person, or that it’s the wrong answer to an apology, because everything is pretty fucking far from okay.

A giant green hand cradles the back of Clint’s head and pulls him close, all but crushing his forehead against the Hulk’s chest, and for the space of one blissful moment the pressure is finally enough to counter the pain and allow Clint to lose consciousness again.  

And the last thought that skitters through Clint Barton’s mind before everything falls silent—coming from nowhere, from a void, seemingly apropos of nothing—is to think that Fury was wrong, that he lied again, that it _had_ hurt.


End file.
